Hello Everyone!

It seems like a while since I've written... Let's see, what has happened.

On Thursday night, I broke down and brought out of storage my super delux this is the maximum legal amount of goose down that you can put into a quilt without environmentalists beating your ass comforter. Even though I bitch in practically every blog about how cold it is outside, it's still not cold enough to bring out the big comforter. I usually wait until the first snowfall. There's a small ceremony that I perform while puttig the duvet on and placing it on the bed. Just kidding. Well, after shivering in the night and morning because it's so cold in my room, I decided to break out good old "goosey". Now if I'm not careful to regulate the temperature under the covers, I can actually start sweating under this thing.

So you may ask why I have this industrial strength comforter. Well, the value minded individual I am, the cost to goose down ratio was the best in the comforter most chock full of goose down (at the time of purchase). There were three levels available at the store. Wussy (why bother), regular (definitely adequate), and the you're originally from Florida and are now in the middle of the arctic with no heat and shelter quality. Well, you know which one I got. My other comforter is totally the opposite, a synthetic filled comforter from the Man's furniture store.

Let me tell you though, in the morning, "goosey" is worth every piece of down that those poor geese had to give up.

Friday was a lazy day turned pretty eventful - I slept in, very nice. My friend Laura and her husband Dave were going to be visiting in the evening, so I figured I'd just mill around the house until then. But, Geneman called me from the airport in NY and said that he was swinging by Michigan for a semi-spontaneous visit. I saw him for a bit (I was going to see him again on Saturday) and then had to go home and get ready for Laura and Dave to come by in the evening.

Laura and Dave were my first official overnight houseguests. As many of you know, my place is pretty bare. Everything's pretty minimal there. I hardly have any furniture, etc. But I set this expectation beforehand, so L and D knew what they were in for. Luckily, they had their own inflatable bed, so we were all set. We ended up going to Dave and Buster's for a bit, and then we chilled out at the house after that.

It's always great to see old friends. You never realize how much you miss them until you see them again after a long time.

So Saturday morning, I walked out of my place, and walked - yes, walked to the local bakery to get some fresh bagels for breakfast. It was totally cool. It's kind of like living in the city, where you can buy food and shop for stuff just around the corner. But instead, I was in the burbs - Wackiness.

Later on that evening, I hung out with Geneman for a while. We had dinner at Arby's - I strongly recommend their Market Fresh sandwiches. Especially the Ham and Swiss. It's quite tasty. After that, we totally geeked/nerded out and had our super delux Canon vs. Sony digicam picture-by-picture shoot-and-comparison. We were out of control. I don't think we had determined a definite winner, but I think at the end of the day, each was satisfied with his camera purchase. :) Kudos to Sony and Canon for making some kickass digicams.

Today (Sunday) was a very lazy day as well. Did a little furniture shopping, actually. I am in desperate need of real people furnishings for my place. Other than the floor, the only place to sit semi-comfortably are at the stools next to the kitchen island. I have been told that even those aren't that comfortable

Anyway, the furniture that I like is pretty pricey. I am still learning the furniture market and finding out the lay of the land to see what's out there. I've found that the cheaper stuff is fine if you just want to look at it. Once you get up close and touch it, the lack of quality definitely shows up. Also, there are some really aesthetically challenged furniture pieces out there. Like really really challeneged. Like immediately go to the clearance center without passing go bad. But hey, I guess all designers have their off days too, right? Like how was Ralph L supposed to know that a horizontally striped green and magenta oompa loompa looking shirt wouldn't sell well? You think I'm joking. I've seen this shirt - plus I have people that can back me up on seeing this particular shirt.

And common to all furniture shopping experiences, there's always the salespeople bopping around the store. It was weird. At the nicer places, the salespeople were circling around every few minutes like vultures. But this time, there was an odd twist. One of the places we went to (and spent a while in), we were never approached by any sales associates the whole time we were there. Not once. Odd, huh? We'll call this furniture vendor Fart Can. Fart Can's facility was enormous. I was lost a few times, and even on the way out, we were seeing parts of the store that we'd never seen before. But hey, I guess FC just wasn't interested in our business. Either that, I just emitted the "just browsing" odor.

However, I did feel bad for one of the salespeople that was trying to make a last minute ditch effort to get my business. As I was walking out, this older dude approaches me, flips open his finely polished business card case takes out a card and scribbles something on it. While he's doing this, he's giving me a sales pitch that I don't remember much of. Trying to be the slick businessman that I am (heh), I quickly look at his card, read off the name, and say "Thanks for your time Alan. I appreciate it." After I said that, I quickly turned around and headed out the door. As I'm walking out to my car, I look down at his card, and just then notice that the name that he scribbled down was "Steve." He must have been using Alan's business card or something (but didn't cross out Alan's name). So, sorry that I wacked your name Alan, I mean Steve. :)

I can't wait until Tuesday is over. I'm getting very very tired of these silly election ads.

Tomorrow will be day 4 of my days off. Fun stuff. :)

-Kirk